Magius' Thoughts on Rayman Legends

Magius Plays Metroid II Part 1

WeirdRaptor's Review of My Little Pony: Rescue at Midnight Castle

Hello, ladies and gentlecolts, WeirdRaptor here. This is my text review of My Little Pony: Rescue at Midnight Castle. In 1984 and 1985, Hasbro worked with Marvel Pruductions and Sunbow Productions to create a pair of half-hour TV special based on their toyline. At this tentative stage, they were simply testing the waters to see if anyone would be willing to sit through a televised program starring the pastel-colored equines running through fields, playing, dancing, singing, and battling the force of Apocalyptic evil. Release April 14th, 1984, it aired in Prime Time.

My Little Pony G1 Cartoons All-Encompassing Review:

Hello, ladies and gentlecolts, WeirdRaptor here. This is my new text review series for the My Little Pony G1 Cartoons. Al inspired me with his reviews, so I am. Now, this is not going to be a rip-off of his work. It will be my own. So let’s get started. This first review is going to critique what I thought of the entire 80s G1 continuity (such as the continuity was) as a whole, and then I’m going to dive into reviewing individual episodes.

Why James Cameron's Avatar Sucks

It's not just that the story is cliched. It's that Cameron didn't even bother trying to put a different spin on it. It is the exact same story of White guilt, tormented natives, and the resulting revolt that we've seen so many times before that it's become tedious. We saw it in Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and FernGully! He plays all the mechanics, tropes, and arcs of the story completely straight and by the book. No effort went into the writing at all. It's all tired cliches, stereotypes, and propaganda. It is the exact same crap that's been rammed down our throats since Captain Planet. In fact, that's exactly what this is. It's an extended Captain Planet episode.

Another thing I hated: demonization of the military, corporations, and humanity as a whole. "We killed our mother" (while disregarding all that's being done to fix it today). Then there's the ax crazy, scared Straw Racist army captain and his band of EVIL soldiers. Having family in the military, I just can't abide some jackass who used to a truck driver painting every man and woman in the armed forces as some rampantly Racist and superior jackass who just loves to shoot and kill. Then there's the sheer hypocrisy of Cameron putting the corporation in a negative light when it is corporate Hollywood who funds his movies. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Also, the story was predictable. It never surprised me or put me at the edge of my seat. I sat through the entire film knowing exactly what was going to happen next almost down to perfect detail. Now, most films follow fairly predictable patterns, but most other films have at least one thing happen I didn't fully foresee. This one...once I knew what a trite snore-fest this was going to be, I might as well have flipped channels because I wouldn't have missed anything by missing it.

Secondly, the gaping plot holes and lapses in logic that defy reason. Why were the Na'Vi never told what the "sky people" wanted? Aren't there laws against how the Na'Vi are treated by the humans? Wouldn't there be union rules, corporate regulations, inspectors, auditors, and supervisors who made sure the operation was run fairly? I mean, that's how we do it now. Why would the prerequisite laws and regulations be null and ignored in the future? Especially in a future where the "earth is dead", despite Jake having served in a jungle meaning the Earth actually wasn't dead. I mean, if we "killed our mother", there'd be laws passed dictating how all businesses would be run, how they would all have to conserve on resources and keep damage to a minimum and that would include the operation at Pandora. This movie ignores how all civilized countries are set up for the sake at taking pot shots at the human race so it can conveniently label us "evil".

On top of that, there's no subtlety. It's all crammed into our faces and nothing is left to viewer imagination. There is no mileage to vary on how each character is supposed to be interpreted. No gray area. This is a story for four year olds, but with a sex scene and brutal violence thrown in. This is a poorly written fairy tale about how the pure, innocent Na'Vi are persecuted by the BIG BAD CORPORATION along with THE BIG BAG MILITARY. The only thing the villains were missing was handlebar mustaches to twirl.

“Cameron had to wait for the technology to catch up with the story” is a joke, and a bad one at that. It’s also a complete fabrication, because this exact story has been told and retold again and again. Nothing about this looks like it would take decades to make. The writing is purely stock and the effects are standard. This could have been in 2000.

The characters were flat, the story was stock, the direction was just decent, the effects were nice but I really didn't care, and the message was condescending and dickish.

Not to mention that in the movie, Earth is in a period of a resource/energy crisis and the atmosphere isn’t even breathable anymore. Unobtanium provides insane amounts of power needs for interstellar travel so that resource extraction and colonization can be possible. And the Earth NEEDS to expand or it will die, so it need the fuel that can be dug up from Pandora. So yeah, Sully told the entire human race to fuck off and essentially condemned them to starving to death, and all for alien nookie. Sully is a dumb, nasty, 12 year old boy.

I saw say nuke Pandora from orbit. No one needs that race of Mary Sues.

Don't like my opinion? Tough shiest.

The Lion King vs. Kimba

I just got done arguing this point with particularly rabid anime fanbrats, so this is going to be a bit of a rant.

Now, I'm not one to fan hate, but by damn, sometimes certain fanbases it make it easy to. VERY easy, and very tempting. Look, particularly obsessed anime fanbrats, slinging mud in The Lion King's direction over the whole Lion King vs. Kimba nonsense has accomplished the grand total of one thing over the years: you've made people like me dislike Kimba and even bristle at the very mention of the show's name. Look, I'm not going to to argue Lion King's case. I've done that millions of times over and never once received an acceptable counter argument.

I might have liked Kimba: The White Lion. I really might have, but all the slander directed at one of my all-time favorite Disney movies have convinced me not to touch this show with a twenty foot pole. Well, that's not entirely tue, I did try to watch the show and found it to be a subpar opus, at best. Seriously, THIS is the work that has you all up in arms?! Give me a break. Granted, I went into it with a less than positive attitude, but still... Okay, so they have lions. Okay, so the father dies. The latter is typical of many "coming of age" stories and Disney cites Hamlet, among other things, as source for Lion King. Everything IN The Lion King is very general to most stories of that kind, and the similarities between the two are very superficial.

Seriously, we may as well complain about Superman's backstory being Moses with aliens.

My point: give it rest. You're not doing Kimba any favors by introducing people to the show in the worst way you possibly could. Look at it from a Disney fan's point of view. Let's pick a show, shall me? Ghost in the Shell. Alright, you're enjoying yourself on a GitS board one day when suddenly some prat shows up with righteous indignation and starts slinging insults and claims that Ghost ripped off another work (let's just pick Blade Runner or The Princess of Mars hypothetically). Now tell me, would you view what he's claiming is the "superior original" very kindly? No, you wouldn't. And that's how it is for us. I cannot stress enough that you're not doing Kimba any favors by dombarding Disney fans with all this ire. You're making us groan at the very mention of your beloved show's name. I can't imagine you want that to be our reaction anytime Kimba's brought up.

And another thing. Let's say Disney comes out and admits it, and I'm proven wrong. Alright, what do you want me to do about it? The film is going on 20 years old in a few years. So what exactly are we supposed to do about Lion King and Kimba's similarities, I wonder. It's too late to boycott the movie (too late five or six times over now, in fact), and I've already bought the dang thing on home video twice (VHS and DVD).

Now let's look at the things that are different
-Simba knew his father, Kimba didn't.
-Mufasa was killed by his brother, Ceaser was killed by a hunter.
-Simba grew up with Nala, Kimba met Kitty later.
-Simba grew up, Kimba didn't.
-LK's plot is Similar to Hamlet, whereas Kimba seems to have just about everything short of alien invasion.
-Scar is a constant antagonist, Claw isn't.
-LK has set characters, Kimba has a lot of one-offs.

Also for plot points:

Kimba's father is the king of a jungle
vs.
Simba's father is the king of a big patch of savannah


Kimba's father is killed by a hunter (apparently) for stealing domestic cattle off human villages.
vs.
Simba's father is killed by his brother out of greed.


Kimba is shipped off with him mother to a zoo while still in her womb, but escapes when the ship founders in a storm.
vs.
Simba is chased off alone by hyenas (after birth, obviously), but escapes when he falls into a field of thorn-bushes.


Kimba nearly drowns at sea, but is taught to swim by fishes and guided to land by butterflies.
vs.
Simba nearly dies in the desert, but is rescued at the last by Timon and Pumbaa and manages his way home without asking for directions.


Kimba is raised by two humans somewhere in the Middle-East.
vs.
Simba is raised by Timon and Pumbaa in an African Jungle.


Kimba is eager to get home.
vs.
Simba is not eager to go home, and is only shamed into it eventually by Rafiki.


Kimba brings the wonders of human civilisation to his jungle home.
vs.
Simba overthrows his tyrannical uncle to allow his land to regenerate.


Do any of those actually sound similar to you? They certainly don't to me. It would be like claiming that The Lord of the Rings is a ripoff of Babylon 5.

Next, you DON'T have to validate your love of anime at all, and picking fights with fans of other works isn't how to do it. Stop getting so desperate to be accepted and proven acceptable for liking anime by targetting and tearing apart as a "ripoff" anything Western that remotely resembles an anime. I also love anime, but I also love opuses that are made in the Western part of the world.

I don't need to point at Treasure Planet and call it a rip off of Outlaw Star to prove that what I like is acceptable (for one thing, I'd have to completely ignore the existance of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island). At the end of the day, nobody cares. Or the only people who do will be the fans of the work that's being accused and slandered, and the only thing they'll be feeling is anger and annoyance right back at anime fans. Stuff like this and the Atlantis vs. Nadia thing doesn't reflect well on anime fans as a whole.

One thing I would like to remind anyone to prescribes by the "Lion King rips off Kimba" mindset: Both Europe and China have their own version of the Cinderella tale, and both were developed independently. So yes, different parts of the world CAN create two very similar stories purely by chance.

Also, the only difference between a movie not based on anything particular and a remake is that the remake is just more blatant about being an old idea.

Now, I'm not saying all or even most anime fans are like this. I'm just talking about the prats that do act like this.

Anyway, sorry, I just HAD to get this off my chest. Seeya all later.           

I've Never:

Disclaimer: I do not own "FullMetal Alchemist".

Note: In this tale, I make no attempt at being serious, so please do not be offended.

Edward and Alphonse Elric, Winry Rockbell, Roy Mustang, Hughes, Hawkeye, Armstrong, Envy, Lust, Greed, Wrath, Rose, Scar, Ling, and Izumi all sat in Mustang's office.